Jay Hanson wrote:
>
> From: Brad McCormick, Ed.D. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> >A given quantity of stuff is not a constant. That's the
> >point I was trying to make. Technological advance
> >(advance in knowledge in general...)
>
> There is no creation of matter/energy Brad. Technology can not repeal the
> laws of thermodynamics.
[snip]
Correct, but, like many "correctitudes",
misleading. Technology (scientists) *discovered* the laws
of thermodynamics (which you wouldn't be talking
about if you lived in the 17th century...),
and Peter Behrens'/Mies van der Rohe's/
et al. dictum: "less is more" could well be rephrased:
Always finding ways to do more with less. If I have
one gallon of gasoline and I figure out a way to
double the gas mileage of my car, all other things equal,
I have doubled my energy reserves.
I would agree with you that there are no miracles of
loaves and fishes, but the reproduction of *knowledge*,
via the printing press, radio, and now FTP (etc.) is
for all practical purposes similar (and, in ways,
better, since food only meets bodily needs, whereas
knowledge can nourish the spirit).
A quote from Habermas's _Knowledge and Human Interests_:
> The systematic sciences of social action, that is
> economics, sociology... have the goal, as do the
> empirical-analytic sciences, of producing
> nomological knowledge. A critical social science,
> however, will not remain satisfied with this.
> It is concerned... to determine when theoretical
> statements grasp invariant regularities of social
> action as such and when they express ideologically
> frozen relations of dependence that can in
> principle be transformed. To the extent that this is the
> case, the critique of ideology, as well, moreover,
> as psychoanalysis, take into account that
> information about lawlike connections sets off a
> process of reflection in the consciousness of
> those whom the laws are about. Thus the level of
> unreflected consciousness, which is one of the
> initial conditions of such laws, can be transformed.
> Of course, to this end a critically mediated
> knowledge of laws cannot through reflection alone
> render a law itself inoperative, but it can render
> it inapplicable. (Habermas, 1968/1971, p. 310)
I agree with you that we likely are dying off,
but that is not the whole story, and even you engage in
conversation, so why not think about what you are doing
as well as its "content" (the reality of knowing --
"the conversation we are" (Gadamer) --
rather than just the mental constructions of "things
known" -- a.k.a. "the universe" etc., which find
their place in that reality as topics of conversation)?
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
-------------------------------------------------------
<![%THINK;[SGML]]> Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
